Karla Huebner's Blog, page 12

What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me

Donna Gordon's novel What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me launches June 8 from Regal House.

In a cruel genetic twist, thirteen-year-old Lee, afflicted with Progeria (a premature aging disease) speeds through the aging process and approaches death. Fascinated by the life of Ben Franklin, his final wish is to visit the Franklin Institute and White House in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Due to a family mix-up that keeps his single mother in Newark, Lee’s new caretaker Tomas—a survivor of Argentina’s Dirty War—agrees to take Lee instead. Lee, fighting the acceleration of time, and Tomas, fighting a past filled with memories of imprisonment and torture, help each other pursue a final quest—for Lee it is the ghost of Ben Franklin, for Tomas his missing family, “disappeared” in the war and possibly living in Philadelphia. One heading inevitably towards death, the other fleeing it, Lee and Tomas share their unsettling truths with each other.

As Seen on TV

Meredith Schorr's 2022 Debut rom-com As Seen on TV launches June 7th, and tells the story of a city girl who goes in search of small-town happiness, only to discover life—and love—are nothing like the TV movies. New York journalist Adi finds that Pleasant Hollow isn’t exactly “pleasant.” There’s no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, but he works for the company she’d hoped to bring down...

Upcoming Events

Yesterday's launch party at the Ghostlight cafe was lovely and lots of fun--thank you to all who attended and also to the Ghostlight managers and baristas who helped!
My next book events are also in the Dayton area.

This Friday, June 10th, I'll be giving a talk on Toyen at the High Street Gallery (home of the Dayton Society of Artists) at 7pm. Copies of both Magnetic Woman and In Search of the Magic Theater will be available for sale.

On Saturday, June 18th, I'll be at the Beavercreek Barnes & Noble to sign books from 1:00 to 3:00 along with Erin Flanagan, Valerie Nieman, and Jess Montgomery.

Launch Party Coming Up Sunday!

It's been a fairly crazy week and a half, as just a little over a week before In Search of the Magic Theater came out, a family emergency required my travel out of town and taking up home health aide-like duties. The patient is expected to recover fully, but I clocked quite a few hours in the hospital and rehab facility, and the rabbits were not very happy about being taken on a long car trip or spending days in an X-pen in my mother's living room.

Fortunately, before I left town I was able to finalize plans for a launch party on June 5th at Dayton's well-loved cafe Ghostlight, and the boxes of books I ordered arrived in a timely fashion despite fears of supply-chain delays!

I have another couple of Dayton-area events lined up but I have just reached home and the rabbits need their evening treat, so stay tuned...

The Candid Life of Meena Dave

Namrata Patel's 2022 Debut novel The Candid Life of Meena Dave launched June 1st. Meena, a nomadic photojournalist without family, suddenly inherits an apartment in a Victorian brownstone in historic Back Bay, Boston, which changes her life in myriad unexpected ways.

It's Launch Day for My Novel!

If you haven't yet ordered your copy of In Search of the the Magic Theater, you can get it in paperback, e-book, or special edition hardcover from the Regal House website! There'll be a launch party Sunday at the Ghostlight cafe on Wayne in Dayton, and other opportunities later in the month to get signed copies directly from me in the Dayton area.

And here's a lovely review from Goodreads:

In Search of the Magic Theater weaves the lives of Sarah, a very particular Cellist, and Kari Zilke, her aunt's new lodger. Sarah is at first resistant to the presence of Kari but before long she finds herself taking an interest in her life and their lives become unexpectedly intertwined. Sarah has been hiding behind her music, whilst Kari avoids her theatrical past, but both women will find their lives disrupted by a new presence.

This is a novel of self-discovery. It's clever, it's layered, it's fun. Heubner gives us a real sense of the generational tensions, from Sarah's feeling towards people her own age, to Kari slipping through the gaps of time. The story is drenched in theatre, art and music, and we even get a glimpse into the theatre piece at the end.

I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

--Puddles

Many thanks to Puddles and other early reviewers for their thoughtful comments, and please, if you enjoy this (or any other) book, by all means leave a review or short comment on Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and/or wherever else that might help other readers discover good books. In a publishing environment when several thousand books come out each day, and internet algorithms are king, happy readers are crucial to helping books find other interested readers.

Bycatch

Bycatch, by Alexander Blevens, launches May 30th and is a 2022 Debut about a man whose past in Vietnam comes back to haunt him when his sons scuttle a shrimp boat and drown a Vietnamese immigrant fisherman who had witnessed the crime he committed so long ago.

Coming June 1st!

You know you want to read this updated take on Hesse's classic Steppenwolf (with alternating narrators Kari and Sarah)! Order now direct from Regal House and be among the first to get your copy (paperback, e-book, or special edition hardback).

Launch Celebration at Ghostlight

It's set--there will be a reading and celebration for In Search of the Magic Theater at 2:00 on Sunday, June 5th, at the Ghostlight cafe on Wayne at Clover in Dayton, Ohio.

Ghostlight is a much beloved Dayton gathering place that I've been visiting since it first opened in 2011, so I'm very pleased that it has worked out to have the launch there. If you're in the Dayton area, please join us there on June 5th!

Copies of both books will be available.

A Letter in the Wall

A Letter in the Wall, by Eileen Brill, is a 2022 Debut launching May 24th. It’s 1971, and Joan Dumann fears her former business partner wants her dead. Both manipulative and vulnerable, naive and conniving, Joan is a complex woman. Although she's originally from a prosperous Quaker family, Joan has often been her own worst enemy, alienating those who care deeply for her. But where will her sometimes smart, sometimes foolish, decisions ultimately take her?

Inspired by a letter written by the real Joan, found hidden in the wall of Eileen's Pennsylvania home, this story is a fictionalized imagining of who Joan was. I had the privilege of reading an advance reader copy, and can heartily recommend this subtle and psychologically acute tale of a twentieth-century woman's progress and missteps.